


Busted

by Shaw



Series: Surviving Your Coworkers: A Cohesive Guide to Working in Blackwatch [1]
Category: Blackwatch - Fandom, Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Don't let the inclusion of OCs fool you, Gen, Jesse is the real star of the show
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-04
Updated: 2018-05-04
Packaged: 2019-05-01 23:54:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,305
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14532129
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shaw/pseuds/Shaw
Summary: Jesse McCree did not mind waiting the long haul for a pay off that would be greater than the cost. He didn’t, surprisingly, mind staying in a cramped hotel with little luxury and even less basic needs. What he did mind was who he was being forced to bunk with for the duration of the mission.





	Busted

Jesse McCree did not mind waiting the long haul for a pay off that would be greater than the cost. He didn’t, surprisingly, mind staying in a cramped hotel with little luxury and even less basic needs. What he did mind was who he was being forced to bunk with for the duration of the mission. Rubbing his temples as he tried to swallow down a cup of black coffee that was mostly dregs, he snuck a glance at said teammate. She was busy adjusting the frequency and volume of the listening device currently stuffed into her ear, dark eyes narrowed as she focused. 

 

“Anything yet, Darling?” Lihua slowly looked at Jesse passively, mouth twisting into a grimace. It was a usual expression she seemed to wear and didn’t deter him in the slightest. He took that as a no. 

 

They’d been sent on this mission to gather intel on an a suspected Talon associate. Some inconspicuous scientist of sorts that was flying under the radar fame wise. Their details were slipping McCree’s mind as he tried to shake off some of the sleep deprivation that was threatening to send him under. They’d been at this for approximately 26 days, carefully maintaining a well managed distance from the target while they slowly funneled information about their private affairs back to base. Lihua had done most the tech work despite her insistence on hitting the ground. Jesse couldn’t allowed that. If he was stuck with the boring parts of this job he might just lose his cool. Losing one’s cool within striking distance of Lihua Darling Dongjeong was not a good idea. 

 

“There appears to be something keeping them from their usual schedule. You need to figure out what it is. I’ve already checked over their message records.” 

 

“Give me a second, Darling, I’m tryna recuperate.” Lihua snorted softly to herself and Jesse could feel her rolling her eyes. 

 

“What is it, McCree? Feeling a little, under the weather, perhaps? Maybe you should take over and I’ll go do the scouting.” A scowl pushed its way onto Jesse’s face involuntarily. Downing the last of his coffee he growled under his breath and tossed the cup aside on the bed. 

 

“Like Hell I’ll let ya do that. It ain’t no thing. You got a location for me to generalize?” A moment of stony silence lapsed in Lihua’s disappointment. It was unlikely she had expected Jesse to actually concede but it was no secret she was bored as all cooped up in their room. 

 

“Yes. I’d suggest first shadowing her usual route. Then try swinging by both the local bar and the pharmacy. “

 

“Is that solid or is that an educated guess?” Jesse let a grim smile crawl across his face, searching Lihua’s face for response. There was no clear change in anything but the look in her eyes. Hard, cold, and sharp as stone. Jesse chuckled to himself despite the lack of humor in the situation and got up. A cascade of food crumbs followed down and Lihua hummed in disapproval, turning back to her own work. 

 

While she kept fiddling, Jesse turned to the limited wardrobe he’d be allowed for the mission. He swore up and down that he’d be just fine with what he got on his back but from the look the commander had given him with this declaration and the not so subtle stare of disgust from Lihua he figured that wouldn’t be allowed. Thus he’d had the chance to get himself to pack up several different colored flannels and three very similar boot cut jeans. 

 

“Don’t forget your communicator.” 

 

“Wouldn’t dream of it, Darling. How else am I supposed’ta stay in touch with you and your lovely self?” 

 

“Save it, McCree. Don’t forget, if you can get close enough to them you better plant that bug. I’m sick and tired of beating around the bush.” Tipping his chin down and planting his hat on his head, Jesse grunted and padded over to the doorway where he’d left his boots. 

 

“Right on it, Darling. Trust me, I’m about as stoked about this as you are.” 

 

“I doubt that.” Came the snappy reply. 

 

With a click of his tongue and a shake of his head, Jesse pulled on his boots and went back to retrieve several of the bugs they had come equipped with. Just in case, Reyes had said. Tipping his hat to Lihua, he made his way out the hotel door and down the hall to the elevator. His head was still feeling the weight of his lack of sleep and the coffee was only just starting to kick in. It made his teeth sit on edge but he didn’t dare complain. This was maybe the only thing keeping him from pulling those scratchy blankets up over his head and calling it quits. But damned he’d be if he was going to let Lihua show him up on this mission. She was right set on getting further up the ladder and her being a real teacher’s pet really helped quite a bit. 

 

The dinky neighborhood that the target currently occupied as home was a little more busy than usual. Jesse found himself dancing around bustling omnics and humans alike, all of them too absorbed in themselves to spare him much more than a passing glance as he gave his ‘excuse me’s and ‘pardon me’s. 

 

He needed to work his way backwards. Sparing a glance down to his wrist at the device that rested there, he noted the time. A little past 3 PM. A late lunch break would be in order, according to their observations. As he walked, a light static erupted in his left ear. 

 

“McCree. Do you copy?” 

 

“Roger roger.” He muttered under his breath, scanning his surroundings. Nobody was paying attention but now a days most people could recognize when someone was using an earpiece. Not necessary cause for suspicion, but Jesse had to be cautious about these things. 

 

“Good. You’re bringing me back food.” It was less a question and more a command. Jesse held his tongue. 

 

“I wonder what I should get.” He said after a moment, catching sight of the diner down the street. Lihua was silent a moment although the soft static of the line meant their line was still up. 

 

“I want a turkey club. Can you please, for your own sake, make sure they give me sweet potato fries this time. I’m sure you’d hate to have any problems tonight with your bedsheets.” The threat would have felt flimsy if it were coming from anyone else. Jesse knew better than to test Lihua. 

 

“Ain’t my fault you didn’t get your gross fries.” He grumbled lowly enough to avoid looking like he was talking aloud to someone. His earpiece was nearly invisible after all, and if anything he’d look like he was talking to himself. 

 

“You have shit taste, McCree.” 

 

“Says the one eatin’ sweet potato fries.” He scoffed back. The line dropped after that and Jesse was left to his own thoughts for the time being. He was a bit peckish at the moment but now that the caffeine had hit he felt too wired to actually sit down and eat. He wanted to go find the suspect and get to work. He understood why they were treating this case gently-- they may damn well be wrong about their target’s intentions. The poor sap may have been roped in against their will, or may not even understand what they’d gotten themselves into. Seemed to happen to so many other innocent folks. 

 

Jesse entered the diner as casually as possible, letting his gaze sweep slowly enough up to the menu hoisted up on the back wall that he could case the joint. They were sitting near the back, by the kitchen door. That wasn’t going to work in Jesse’s favor but at least he knew where they were. He reached a hand up to the side of his head in a feign of scratching behind his ear. The familiar static started up as he nudged the minuscule button on his ear piece. 

 

“Seems to be the usual crowd.” He mused aloud to no one in particular. Or at least that’s how it appeared to everyone else.

 

“They’re there? Good. Don’t forget my food.” A moment of irritation passed over Jesse at Lihua’s lack of professionalism. But in her defense, their hotel didn’t exactly server a continental breakfast. Neither of them had much for food today. Moseying his way up to the counter, he laid a casual hand by the payment device and hummed to himself. Chicken fried steak sure sounded good right about now. The food wasn’t too high quality but they gave you good portions for a criminally underrated price. 

 

“I’ll take one turkey club to go, if ya please. And one of them chicken fried steaks for here.” 

 

“My fries, McCree.” Came the sudden, deadly tone of Lihua from the line. He cleared his throat softly, face paling the slightest. 

 

“Oh, and, uh, put sweet potato fries on that club, would’ya?” He gave a lazy smile to the cashier who merely tapped away at the order screen impassively. Jesse found it a smidgen hard to gauge what omnics were feeling at any one time. Humans were lots easier to read.

 

Jesse paid in cash, giving a somber apology that he could only pay in his tip money. The cashier made no fuss over it other than calling Jesse old-fashioned in a soft voice. He got a cup for his drink and a to-go cup of sweet tea for Lihua to sip at and went to take his seat as he waited for his order. 

 

“Thank you.” Lihua only sounded slightly sarcastic. Jesse took a long drink from his rootbeer and sighed. He could sure go for something stronger than rootbeer and shitty coffee, but this would have to do. He kept a vague eye on the person sitting in the booth across from his, watching them slowly eat their way through a limp, soggy looking salad. It was their usual order and they never seemed deterred by the wilted lettuce. 

 

When Jesse’s order arrived, he was quick to check the to go box for the fries. Finding they were in order, he instead started to dig into his own food. He had to admit, after nothing but black coffee, shitty tap water, and stale chips? The food tasted like heaven on a plate. As he ate he kept getting subtle glances forward. He’d figured it was better to sit facing the person than have his back towards them. He could pass off his glancing and staring as awkwardness and vacancy. 

 

“Have you planted any of the bugs yet.” 

 

“Mm-mm.” A noise of satisfaction hidden as an negatory response. Lihua sighed and Jesse swore he could hear her stomach grumbling through the speaker. He could have also sworn he heard her give a soft ‘hurry up’ and a pang of sympathy struck him, but only momentarily. Currently his target was standing up with a dissatisfied look on their face and a hand clutched to their stomach. Jesse watched them hastily make their way to the bathroom. Seemed their food wasn’t settling with them well. 

 

“Seems someone’s already got a bug in ‘em.” Lihua made a short noise of confusion but said nothing in response. Jesse hung back for a bit before standing up and making his way to the bathroom himself. It wasn’t a lie he sure had to piss. Entering the bathroom he spotted a woman washing her hands. She benignly glanced at him before shoving her hands under the hand dryer and going about her business. A restrained groan came from one of the stalls. Jesse considered this for a moment and walked into one of the adjacent stalls.

 

It didn’t take him long to get about his own business. The line went off, thankfully, as Lihua probably picked up on what was going on pretty keenly. While Jesse wasn’t particularly bashful, and he’d done worse than take a piss in Lihua’s presence, it wasn’t exactly an enjoyable affair to have someone listen to you going to the bathroom. 

 

After a bit, Jesse exited the stall with a kick of the flushing mechanism and went to wash his hands. The poor scientist still hadn’t exited their own. He was only slightly suspicious as he hadn’t heard any telltale signs of gastrointestinal distress. Or, as he liked to call it, The Shits. He could practically see the look of distaste on O’Deorain’s face and he laughed to himself. 

 

He lingered for as long as he could without being too clear he was waiting. He even took off his hat and fussed at his hair a bit. When it became clear the person was not going to exit the stall, the man became a bit bold. 

 

“Hey, champ. Y’all doin’ alright in there?” A gentle rap on the stall door and his question warranted no response. The line buzzed back to life. 

 

“Are you done?”

 

“Something’s up.” He muttered. He slowly took a step back away from the stall and leaned carefully to peek under the door. Restrooms hadn’t really changed much. Two legs sat limply sitting, pants around their ankles. Jesse grit his teeth and had to consider the worst. 

 

“I think our target just got laid off.” Silence. Jesse braced himself for a moment before grabbing the top of the stall door and pulling himself up with relative ease. The poor bastard… They were slumped over, a light foaming of frothy saliva and blood gathered around their lips and more blood coagulating under their nose. 

 

“They aren’t.” Lihua’s voice was full of exasperation. Nearly a month of work down the toilet in a single sitting. As Jesse pulled himself further up and over the stall door and landed in the cramped space, he wafted a hand over his face in distaste. No worse place to die than a dingy ol’ public restroom. Shitty lucky. Now the real question was who the Hell carried out the hit on them? 

 

“Sure are, Darling. Dead as a doornail. Deader than dirt.”

 

“Commander is going to have our heads for this.” 

 

“Hey now, ain’t our fault someone decided to up and kill ‘em. We were sent her on surveillance and intel gathering. If anything, I think this probably is a pretty good amount of information.” A long pause as Jesse considered if he should tell management they had a corpse in their bathroom. He decided against it, it’d put too much spot light on him. He needed to get out now before anybody else showed up and wondered why he was exiting a crime scene. 

 

Gently, Jesse reached forward and closed the still open eyes of his now former target. He knew it was no use, since as soon as rigor mortis set in they’d open up anyways but it still felt the respectful thing to do. At least to him. Scaling back over the stall wall and washing his hands again for good measures, Jesse exited the bathroom and went back to his booth. He finished his meal as quickly as possible without raising any suspicion and took his to-go box with him. He left a tip, of course. He wasn’t raised in a barn. 

 

Taking a sip of the sweet tea he had intended to give to Lihua, he tapped the communication button once more and yawned. Lihua was breathing rather deeply into the mic. Jesse could tell she was rightfully pissed off. He was too, if he was being honest. It was never quite nice when missions didn’t go the way they were supposed to but this was entirely out of his hands. They’d done everything right. They’d have to call in back to base that night and tell them to send Fio in to pick them up. 

 

Back in the dark and frankly musty hotel room, Lihua had her head in her hands and all her equipment already packed back up. Jesse stared at her for sometime, wondering if she was ever going to raise her head to claim her now half emptied drink and lukewarm food. 

 

“You alright there, Darling?” He finally asked, tentatively. While he and Lihua certainly weren’t enemies they’d never exactly been friends either. That went for most the members in Blackwatch. They were teammates first, and everything else second. A level of trust, respect, and understanding was necessary; liking any of them was another story. 

 

“I’m fine.” She said, finally. Lifting her head from her hands she took a deep breath and smoother her hand back over her hair. It was looking worse for wear from the shitty shampoo they’d been rationing between them for the past near month. 

 

“Right.” Jesse wasn’t going to push past that. He didn’t want to. He was pretty sure Lihua didn’t either. A nice unspoken agreement to never actually talk about their feelings with one another. It worked well. 

 

She eventually picked up her food, popped open the carton, and started to pick at the contents. The sweet potato fries seemed to at least help her mood slightly, Jesse noted. Even if they were the absolute worst possible fries one could get, he supposed he owed the little bastards something since if Lihua was in a bad mood, he’d surely follow. 

 

When time came to check back in with home base, neither Jesse nor his partner were looking too forward to it. Jesse tried to rock, paper, scissors over it but Lihua was having none of it and merely shoved the communicator into Jesse’s hands and sat back, nursing the last of the sweet tea from her cup. She hadn’t even mentioned that Jesse sucked half of it down on the way back from the diner. 

 

That conversation went about as well as expected. Gabriel didn’t seem very happy with the information that their charge had been poisoned without either of them knowing exactly who had done it. They still highly suspected Talon but none of the late scientist’s records really showed any particular involvement with the organization other than some funding going to their facility from known Talon associates years back. Still, that’d be one of their few leads into perhaps sneaking a bug directly onto a Talon operative and finding out what kind of experiments and business Talon was getting itself into. 

 

Fio showed up later the following day, in the wee hours of the morning. Jesse had taken his sweet time to actually sleep that night and wasn’t exactly happy when Lihua shook him awake and forced him to get dressed. 

 

“You can sleep on the way back, McCree. Quit complaining and put on a shirt.” He’d done so, yes, but he’d grumbled most the time. People always said you get used to the irregular sleeping schedule and early mornings after late nights. He begged to differ. It never stopped being shitty as he saw it. 

 

“Hey you two.” Fio greeted, adjusting the rear view mirror of the inconspicuous vehicle. Jesse caught a look at himself in the mirror briefly and nearly swore under his breath. He looked like fresh Hell. Lihua wasn’t looking much better, her face a bit pale and eyes heavy with lack of sleep; He had no idea he’d looked so haggard. “Sorry to hear about the mission busting like that.” The woman finally tacked on, already pulling away down the road. There would be an air field they’d have to go to so Fio could fly them back out to the Blackwatch base in Rome and Jesse wasn’t looking forward to the inevitable jet lag. 

 

“It’s nothing.” Lihua said, as if for Jesse. He sighed gratefully and pulled his hat down over his eyes and leaned back. Ain’t no thing, he mused.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! I finally got around to doing something I wanted to do for while, namely writing Overwatch fanfiction! I never felt very comfortable doing it before due to having not played the game but now that I have/am... Well, no reason not to anymore, right? Like, comment, and subscribe to the series so you can get updated on future works! As always, happy reading, and Addio!


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